Jake Smolinski wrote his name large in the Boylan record book, both in football and baseball, back in high school.

Now he has done the same for the Texas Rangers after only four games.

Smolinski was called up the to majors from Class AAA on Monday, becoming the first major league hitter from a NIC-10 school in 77 years. He went 0-for-2 that first night after entering as a pinch hitter, but started the next three days and banged out eight hits. Those eight hits in his first four games as a Ranger are a Texas record.

“You don’t worry about the results,” Smolinski, a 25-year-old outfielder, said in a phone interview before the Rangers’ game Friday against the Anaheim Angels. “You just take it one pitch at a time and one at-bat at a time. As long as I feel I’m up there competing and ready to hit every pitch, the rest is out of your control.”

Smolinski, whose strength in the minors has always been drawing walks and rarely striking out, started 0-for-4 with three strikeouts before going 8-for-10 to lift his average to .571 through Thursday’s games.

“My first four at-bats weren’t that great, but I was feeling good at the plate; I just had some tough pitches,” Smolinski said. “You try to stick with it. Hits obviously help your confidence, but I felt good at the plate anyway. I just knew I needed to stick with it.”

Smolinski snapped his short 0-for skid with an RBI double to deep left Tuesday against the Astros. After he pulled into second, Astros All-Star second baseman Jose Altuve congratulated him on his first hit.

“I am sure when they recognize it’s someone’s first hit, they remember when they had theirs,” Smolinski said. “It’s something special that everybody remembers. It was cool. A great feeling. Something I’ll never forget. One of my teammates (rookie outfielder Daniel Robertson) said something to me that stuck out: ‘That’s something that no one can ever take away from you.’ ”

Smolinski was once a top-10 prospect of the Washington Nationals after getting picked high in the second round of the 2007 draft, but three seasons marred by injuries dropped him off the radar for most of his first seven seasons in the minors. He then left the Florida Marlins organization, where he played in Class AAA last year, to sign with Texas last winter. All draft picks not on a 40-man roster become free agents after seven years.

“I really didn’t have any expectations of what level I wanted to be at the end of the year,” Smolinski said. “When I signed with Texas, I just wanted to sign with a good organization.”

Page 2 of 2 - The Rangers were coming off four straight 90-win seasons, reaching the World Series twice in that span, but have fallen apart this season. The injury-riddled Rangers have used 49 players this year, only six shy of the team record, and began Friday with the worst record in baseball after a 1-9 skid dropped them to 38-54.

“If everybody would have stayed healthy, I don’t know if this would have ever happened,” said Smolinski, who has three doubles among his eight hits. “But injuries happened and somebody believed in me enough to call me up.”

Smolinski’s most recent hit, another double, came off Angels reliever Drew Rucinski, who pitched for the independent league Rockford Aviators last year. Rucinski is the first former Aviator to play in the majors.

“I saw that,” Smolinski said. “My last hit was in his debut. It’s good to see people from back home in the big leagues.”

Smolinski, thought by many to be called up as a platoon outfielder batting against lefties, has become a lineup fixture with his hot start. He is 5-for-7 vs. lefties and 3-for-7 vs. right-handers, with two RBIs against each. He said he doesn’t know if his hot start has kept him in the lineup or if he needs to keep hitting to keep starting.

“I don’t know what the plan was,” Smolinski said. “I’m just trying to do whatever I can do to contribute to the team. Whatever happens after that happens.

“I just worry about the things I can control. I prepare myself every day to give 100 percent to the game.”